(december 2007)
A lesson from Venezuela.
Unlike George W Bush, who has tried to significantly alter the nature of USA
society without allowing te people to express their opinion, Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela granted its subjects a referendum. The people voted against it.
Chavez admitted defeat. This is what we call "democracy". It is telling that
Bush and countless members of his party and the Bush cheerleaders at Fox News
keep referring to Chavez as a "dictator", while never using the same word for
the regimes of Saudi Arabia or mainland China, that obviously deserve it.
Bush has never once asked for the dictator of mainland China or the dictator
of Saudi Arabia to step down, has he?
The other lesson from Venezuela's referendum is that the democratic institutions
of Venezuela are resilient. Let us hope that USA institutions prove to be as
resilient under the relentless attacks of the corrupt Bush administration
and the unelected Supreme Court.
In conceding defeat, Hugo Chavez declared "the winner is the one who wins the most votes". Someone should make a huge poster and post it on the White House.

(september 2007)
Chavez is the USA's worst nightmare.
Some anti-USA demagogues may be popular for a while, but usually they end up
alienating the very audience they target, and they become assets for the USA,
the best USA propaganda one can hope for. For example, Ahmadinejad has caused
so much economic damage to Iran that he has probably greatly improved the
image of his enemies (i.e., the USA) in Iran.
Chavez, though, might be the real thing. Right-wing commentators (who know very
little about the meaning of the word "democracy" to start with) often call
Chavez "dictator", displaying both a crass ignorance of the facts and their
level of political correctedness (basically, their shows are mainly about
calling political enemies names). The truth is that every poll has shown
that Chavez still enjoys one of the highest approval ratings of any leader
in the Americas, and almost twice higher than Bush's approval rating (and
this really hurts). Chavez's approval ratings outside his own country are
also consistently higher than Bush's approval ratings outside the USA,
at least in Latin America. When right-waing commentators in the USA simply
call Chavez dictator, they fail to see what makes him so popular, both in
his own country and around the continent. What makes him popular is precisely
what makes the USA unpopular.
The USA has done precious little to fight poverty in Latin America. In fact,
USA corporations have frequently been accused to be the very cause of
poverty in some regions. The USA is also widely held responsible for civil
wars that lasted throughout the Cold War and took a colossal toll on the
fragile economies of countries such as Guatemala and Nicaragua. Last but not
least, the USA is held responsible for countless ruthless dictators who
caused great damage to their countries. More recently, the USA has been
blamed for the excesses of the International Monetary Fund, that seems to
be more interested in making poor countries pay high interest rates on
loans than on helping poor countries get rich. The IMF de facto forced
poor countries to sell off their natural resources to USA corporations in
order to come up with the money needed to pay their debt, thus making them
poorer and poorer at every vicious cycle.
Chavez shares none of these attributes. To start with (despite the name-calling
of USA right-wing commentators), his allies in Latin America are all
democratically-elected presidents. They all want landslides when the people
were finally allowed to vote, after decades of USA-supported dictatorships.
Second, he does not "steal" the natural resources of other countries, as very
few Venezuelan companies operate abroad. In fact, he sells some of his own
natural resources (oil) at friendly prices to his neighbors.
Chavez has bought some of the debt that these countries were not able to
pay, basically taking the place of the IMF without the arrogance of the
IMF. Contrary to the USA, Chavez is not supporting any of the civil wars
in the world. Venezuela does not sell weapons to totalitarian regimes
such as Saudi Arabia.
Chavez has invested heavily in social programs in Venezuale, giving the
poor a large share of the national oil revenues, something that no other
regime of the continent had done. Chavez's policies have restored dignity
to poor Latin American countries and have given hope to the poor of
Venezuela.
No wonder that Chavez is more popular than Bush.
The more the USA attacks Chavez the more resentment it will generate in
Latin America. The right way to "fight" Chavez is to do more than Chavez
does for the poor of Latin America. So far it is Chavez who has done more.

(october 2005)
How anti-American terrorism is born.
The West and the USA in particular is still underestimating how
important the pan-Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera has been in
creating, promoting and supporting Islamic terrorism. It was Al-Jazeera
(not USA foreign policies) that created a strong anti-American sentiment
throughout the Arab world. It was Al Jazeera that justified the suicide
bombers of the second Intifada and popularized the notion that a suicide
bomber is a hero. It was Al Jazeera that hailed the Taliban as victims
of an international conspiracy. It was Al Jazeera that spread the rumours about
the Jews (not the Arabs) being responsible for September 11.
It was Al Jazeera that spread the rumour that Osama bin Laden was innocent
(e.g., that the video in which he talks about the attacks is a forge).
It was Al Jazeera that kept referring to the Israelis and then to the USA in
Iraq as "occupying forces", thus implying that anyone fighting them is a
good person.
It is Al Jazeera that defends all Arab regimes, depicting them as basically
perfect
(see The Islamic world is perfect: the Muslim double standard, part 2), while accusing the USA and all other Western
countries of being undemocratic and full of problems.
A small event like the creation of Al Jazeera (in 1996) may have been
responsible for the biggest problem that the West is facing in 2005.
Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela, is using some
of the money that his country is making thanks to the oil boom (Venezuela
being the Americas' biggest oil producer) to fund a new tv station,
Telesur, that has a strong anti-American stance, very reminiscent of Al Jazeera.
Basically, Telesur bombards the Latin American public with conspiracy
theories and accusations that the USA is responsible for all evils in the
region, while absolving all the Latin American regime (and, of course,
depicting Venezuela as virtually perfect).
The similarities do not end here. Arab terrorists benefited from funders who
had made money from the oil boom. So is Chavez. He is already suspected of
helping Colombia guerrilla fight their war against the government of Colombia,
and there are rumours that Chavez may be behind the unrest in Bolivia.
Chavez is the only man openly supporting the regime of Fidel Castro, a regime
that could fall any time without foreign intervention: Chavez is
trying to keep Castro's regime alive. Thus Chavez is behind just like some
of the Arab sheiks who funded Islamic fighters all over the Middle East, except
that Chavez (the oil sheik of the Americas) is doing it in Latin America.
Al Jazeera and the Arab funders of the jihad found a willing audience in
the masses of unemployed young people, especially in Saudi Arabia.
Venezuela's unemployment is 11%, and the rest of Latin America does even
worse: plenty of potential
While it is unlikely that a region that is fundamentally Catholic could
replicate the terrorist methods of the Islamic lands, it is not unlikely that
massive anti-American propaganda, unemployment and money could lead to
some kind of anti-American terrorism on a large scale.

(February 2003)
It's all about oil.
Noone was killed in Venezuela in months of strikes and marches aimed at
forcing president Chavez to resign. The whole world was watching, and
public opinion from Europe to Argentina was split between pro and anti-Chavez.
On the other hand, 27 people have been killed in Bolivia in similar protests
demanding the resignations of president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and hardly
anyone has noticed. Chavez was elected president by the majority of Venezuelans
in a fair election. Lozada was appointed president by the Bolivian Parliament
after elections failed to yield a winner.
Evo Morales, the Bolivian left-wing leader who defends the rights of the coca
farmers and is opposed to the "war on drugs" (coca being the only source of
revenues for poor farmers), is at least clean of all the scandals and
corruption that haunt the opposition in Venezuela.
And, yet, unrest in Venezuela worries the rest of the world more than unrest
in Bolivia. The difference? Bolivia does not have oil, only poor people.
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(November 2002)
What Chavez represents is frustration.
When Chavez (a man who once tried to overthrow the democratically elected
government with a coup) was elected president by the majority of Venezuelans,
there was a general sense that he was a "lesser evil" (less catastrophic than
the corrupt and incompetent ruling class of the past) and possibly the solution
to Venezuela's problems. After all, like it or not, Chile became the poster
country of Latin America during the years of Pinochet, and Peru turned from
a starving country to an economic miracle during the years of Fujimori.
Both greatly limited freedom, but also reined in corruption and anarchy.
Latin American economies (rich in resources and cheap labor) do not need much
to boom: they need a bit of order and accountability.
Alas, historically those are
precisely the two features that have eluded Latin American countries.
Chavez, like Pinochet and Fujimori before him, was not a saint, but was in a
position (outside the political establishment) to bring order and accountability
to Venezuela.
How could the old political class waste the great advantage that Venezuela has
over the rest of the Americas? Venezuela is the fifth oil producer in the world,
Venezuela has the strongest
democratic traditions south of the USA (Chavez's attempted coup was the
exception, not the rule), and Venezuela used to boast the second best
infrastructure after Chile. How could Venezuela have wasted such an
opportunity?
Chavez was elected because the average Venezuelan is as appalled as the rest
of the world. As the country went from incredulity to dismay to desperation,
popoular support for a "strong man" kept growing. Chavez seized the moment.
Chavez represents the frustration of Venezuelans, but, alas, he was not learned
from Pinochet and Fujimori, and he himself has ended up wasting the opportunity.
Instead of embracing much needed reforms of the kind that Pinochet and Fujimori
brought to their countries, Chavez has set the clock back, and returned
Venezuela to a semi-socialist model of the kind that has failed in the Soviet
Union and has reduced Cuba to starvation. Needless to say, it was a matter of
time before Venezuelans felt that this was even worse than corruption and
incompetence: it was suicide.
Venezuelans are now helpless. If they remove Chavez, they will be robbed again
by the same class of thieves that Chavez removed from power. If they keep
Chavez, they will soon be starving like Fidel Castro's subjects.
In the meantime, Venezuela has split in two camps. The people of Venezuela
have never been so polarized. The poor, uneducated masses still praise Chavez,
because he was given them a few bones to chew (never mind that those "bones"
have cost poor people a huge price in higher cost of living).
The middle class is totally fed up. They feel paralyzed by this government.
Chavez would probably lose an election in just about every major city.
The dilemma is not only Venezuela's. The new populist leaders of South
America (Chavez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil, Toledo in Peru) represent
a general trend: reacting against corruption, the masses use their newly
acquired democratic rights to elect populist, socialist candidates that promise
to fight corruption.
The quandary of Latin America is that the old generation of corrupt leaders is
the one that imported the US model of liberal capitalism, the model that gave
the masses 1. economic development and 2. the right to vote. Despite all the
social injustice and the wealth gap, there is no question that countries like
Venezuela, Peru and Brazil are a lot wealthier today than they have been in
generations, and that their people enjoy more freedom than ever. In fact,
the old guard of politicians was removed without any need for bloody coups
or revolutions. The new leaders have been elected against the will of the rich,
of the army and of the USA. This was unheard of until a few years ago.
The new leaders, on the other hand, represent a return to economic models
that have largely failed. Chavez is close to recreating the widespread poverty
of Cuba. Toledo in Peru is tempted to bring back the socialist ideas of Alan
Garcia that caused mass starvation. And Lula in Brazil so far has only scared
investors away.
They are more honest than their predecessors, but do not seem to be more
competent in running the country.
The people are left with a dreadful choice: bring back the old thieves, or
keep in power politicians inspired by models that have failed everywhere in
the world.
Pinochet and the first Fujimori government ruled with little or no corruption
and created real wealth for the middle class.
They hired competent economists to run the country rather than use
demagogy.
Those models, however, relied on a totalitarian regime.
It is sad that no Latin American leader seems to be capable of replicating
the Pinochet-Fujimori model in a democratic (non totalitarian) environment.
The risk is that all these countries will go back to economic disaster,
followed by military dictatorship, thus re-enacting a loop that is
beginning to look like a curse.

1819: Simon Bolivar leads Gran Colombia to independence
1829: Venezuela separates from Gran Colombia
1870: Guzman Blanco restores order in Venezuela
1908: Juan Vincente Gomez seizes the power
1935: end of the Gomez dictatorship
1948: Marcos Perez Jimenez seizes the power
1958: dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez is forced into exile and Romulo Betancourt is elected president in a democratic election
1963: Raul Leoni is elected president
1968: Rafael Caldera is elected president with 29% of the votes
1974: Carlos Andres Perez is elected president
1979: Weak presidents cause the collapse of the Venezuelan economy
1989: Carlos Andres Perez is elected president and enacts an austerity program to repay the international debt
1992: Hugh Chavez tries to overthrow Perez
1993: president Perez, accused of corruption, is ousted by senate
1993: Rafael Caldera is elected president
1998: the traditional parties collapse and Hugo Chavez is elected president
1999: Venezuela changes its constitution
2000: Chavez is reelected under the new constitution
2002: Millions demonstrate against Chavez' economic policies
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(October 1999)
Can Chavez be to Venezuela what Fujimori was to Peru?
Hugo Chavez, the army colonel who led a failed coup in 1992 and was elected
in a landslide in 1998, is following Fujimori's strategy for healing
Venezuela's chronic political malaise: stripping parliament of all powers.
Corruption is so widespread that one body of the government would help
the other one. The only way out is to take away their power.
Chavez has a 75% approval rating, which closely mirrors Fujimori's fortunes
after he did the same thing in Peru.
Right now Chavez can obtain practically anything from the people and he is
planning to have the new constitution approved by referendum.
While it is clear that the population is fed up with the political system,
it is not clear yet what Chavez will do to restore order once he has
removed that political system.
So far the similarities with Fujimori are obvious. But in one respect the
two differ, and considerably: Fujimori was a right-wing civilian, determined
to protect the rights of businessmen against the demagogy of corrupted
politicians; Chavez is a left-wing military man, determined to protect the
rights of the people against the power of the corporations that exploit them.
Chavez is a friend of Fidel Castro. His rhetoric rings bells familiar to the
leftist revolutionaries of South America, to the Sandinistas, to Salvator
Allende's political heirs.